I’ve been watching a lot of My 600 pound life. Like a lot. I’m not sure there are more episodes. 

While some people dislike the show for maybe using people who have an issue with food or making them a sideshow, I appreciate the show for how real it is. While I’ve never reached 600 pounds, I have reached 300, which for me is the point of mobility difficulties. 

Watching the show, I understand the feelings for food, the feeling of the addiction to the feelings of food. 

A woman I dated once said to me, as if it were novel, “You have a very unhealthy relationship with food …”

Well, yea. Have we met? A stranger could see it.

My longest and yet most unstable relationship has always been food.

THE BINGE

I’m doing great with my fitness right now. I’m doing good with my eating. I’m doing okay with my mental health. 

Some days are great. Some days are not. 

Life is pretty damn decent right now. But the emotional days are there. 

This month it happened. It hasn’t in a while but this was a pretty bad one. 

A binge. A true emotional, unfathomable amount of food binge. When you have big feelings, and then you eat them. It’s a lot.

I live with my partner, and he wasn’t with me. This was a hide in your car, because no one can actually witness binge. 

When you’re in a public binge, the one different aspect is the how. 

For me, I go to multiples of the same place. 

This time it was McDonald’s. The reason you go to the same place is so if you don’t get to the garbage, you can pretend it was one trip. You can say I went to McDonald’s without truly lying because who would assume or ask if you went to multiples? 

I get enough food to seem reasonable each time. 

Three meals? Oh she’s probably getting food for a family. 

The family being my one stomach. 

I get to the next one and same. But this time I get ice cream. And they think oh that poor stressed mom. She must need that ice cream before she gets home to all those mouths to feed. 

But it’s me. It’s my mouth to feed. 

Hiding at the end 

The best way to end the binge, is the gas station. 

You can rid yourself of the garbage. You can hide it better. You can get gas. Clean the windows. Start over fresh. Account for the time it took if people are waiting for you. The line at the gas station was wild, right? It’s always wild, right? 

There are so many snacks I can eat in 10 minutes. 

That trash you have to hide in the car

Under the front seat. 

If found, you say 

Remember when

We went to the beach 

Last summer. 

You can do this when you’re out with others, too. If you want to seem normal. When you’re out to dinner, you order something a healthy human might. You eat it dainty. 

The gas station isn’t far. 

Those 600 pound people just want to be normal too. They want to stop but food addiction isn’t like the others. 

My addiction isn’t one I can stop. I need to have a little each day. Can you imagine telling an addict of any kind to have a little each day? 

To survive. To actually survive. 

Bullshit. It’s utter bullshit.

If those 600 pound people, if I, could stop cold turkey, would it work? Would it be easier? 

FOOD SCARIES

I’m heightened right now around my eating. Uncomfortable. I eat around comfortable people only. Eat for real at least. Others I snack. That’s if I’m desperate. Otherwise I don’t. I wait for home.

It’s how it is sometimes. 

I want to get back to feeling normal around food, and I will. But this is just how it is sometimes. 

People see me. And they think some of this is old.

Like when you run, or bike, or play rugby, you can’t struggle with eating anymore. 

But food addiction is forever. 

I love and hate food. I love and hate myself for being an eater.  

For now, I continue to work on myself in the hopes I can be closer to who I want to be, and how I want to be. 

Then again I know the gas station isn’t far.